New York, NY, United States, July 12, 2011 — DinarStandard™, a specialized market research and business media firm, released a listing of 50 Leading Business Schools of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) member countries. The listing showcases how OIC based Business Schools are giving leading regional employers access to top talent from within their own neighborhoods with unique programs such as Islamic finance, entrepreneurship and innovation management.

The Leading 50 list is compiled based on international and regional accreditations and other recognitions of OIC domiciled Universities offering Business degrees. This non-ranked listing also launches DinarStandard’s formal survey to produce a full-ranking to be released in 2012.

Some key insights from the listing are:

Accreditation: Eight B-Schools from the list are AACSB accredited (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.) AACSB is generally regarded as the standard for MBA programs (all US top 20 MBA programs have AACSB accreditation.) These B-Schools are from Bilkent University (Turkey), American University of Beirut, University of Qatar, KFUPM (Saudi Arabia), UAE University (UAEU), University of Dubai, American University of Sharjah, American University Cairo, and Kuwait University. The other Universities have accreditation from EQUIS, AMBA and others.

Islamic Finance Programs: Given the growing demand for Islamic Finance talent, 6 Business Schools from the list are offering full Islamic Finance related degree/ diploma programs (4 of these are Malaysia based.) Another 11 B-Schools include Islamic Finance course-work in their general program.

Geographic breakdown: B-Schools from 16 countries are represented on the list. Malaysia has the highest representation with 8 B-Schools on the list. This is followed by 6 each from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. There are 5 B-Schools from Pakistan and UAE each and 2 each from Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Morocco. Qatar, Nigeria, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Iran, and Bangladesh each have one B-School each on the list.

Most of the programs are English language based and 47 of the 50 on the list offer full-time MBA program.

“The Arab spring has highlighted a broader trend across the Muslim world of a focus on youth employment. As governments and private sector focus on quality higher education to address competitiveness and the need to train and employ youth, we are seeing a maturing of the various Business Schools across the OIC member countries as well,” says Rafi-uddin Shikoh, Managing Director of Dinar Standard™.
The complete 50 Leading Business Schools of the OIC list can be viewed at www.dinarstandard.com/